In this current 2014 paper about geothermal heat, they interpret some of their water observations as being due to heat from the Earth’s core. The paper has some beautiful (to me!) figures including Figure 3 a map of geothermal flux required to produce the melt water they observed:

This is brilliant because not only did they show there was an active water system in 2013, but they are now using their data to understand the nature of the water system beneath the ice sheet.

People tend to think “frozen” as stationary, and they can understand Antarctica as a static system – but in reality there are hundreds of under ice lakes like Vostok, There is - in places - extensive melting and refreezing of water going on under the ice – as pointed by out Robin Bell and colleagues in 2011.

Post navigation

6 thoughts on “Recent Amundsen Sea Embayment Research”

Which is the poorer interpretation: quoting the article on gethermal heating correctly and linking to it? Or claiming that CO2 has heated the bottom of the glaciers and is leading to the collapse- without acknowledging the time scales or the well documented long term movement the study on the collapse was based on?

It’s not the quoting and linking for me which is so painful – but the wrapper around the article which creates an atmosphere which in my view ridicules scientific effort.

So we start with an attempt to suggest that this great research somehow negates our understanding of the climate system
“From the University of Texas at Austin and the “you can stop your wailing now” department, comes this really, really, inconvenient truth.”
Why would someone think such research wasn't welcome?

Then after the copy and paste of the press release are the comments.
So we have...
Accusations of corruption e.g:
“Just like every other controversial subject in this country, there is normally corrupt lobbying power behind it for one reason or another”
“If I can suggest it’s even worse than we could imagine can I get some grant money? ……..100K sounds about right. Does anyone know a good financial expert who can hide the money?”

And just general patronising rubbish e.g:
" “…Schroeder, who received his Ph.D. in May,..” Sigh, another baby scientist"
The latter I find really funny since the “I am older than you therefore I must know better” is truly a Victorian idea.

A block of ice placed on a floor slightly above freezing will slide faster than a block of ice placed on a floor at 0 degrees, but it's still the 50-degree room that's melting the block.

It's bizarre -- and quite telling -- how quickly and firmly the denialist movement will latch onto something like the Daily Caller interpretation of the UTIG study, which even the lead author says has nothing to do with refuting climate change.

I'm always intrigued by the denialist "argument" that scientists are motivated by "pulling down grants", as though research funding translated into, or was in some way equivalent to, personal wealth. My reply used to be along the lines of "go look in any institution's staff car park". Nowadays I think more about the person commenting. The sphere of their perceptions must be so small (i.e. they have such tiny minds) that they can conceive of no motivation beyond the financial. In the words of the noted philosopher Mr. T, I pity the fools.